Pitch Slam 12 - Semi-finals : RUANI

Speaker 1 [00:13] Go on to our 4th semi-finalists for this round. That's Airid Momtora, the founder and pastry chef at Ruani. Come on up. You can use any one of those microphones and please keep an eye on your timer.

Speaker 2 [00:30] Why do desserts have to be bad, and why do the ingredients inside have to be so bad with a lot of sugars and chemicals and junks? And can we replace them with better ones and have, you know, added benefits to it? Can we still preserve the texture and taste as well? Well, these were the questions that came to my mind. Hence, I started wani. Hi, everyone. My name is Anirud Mamtora, and I'm the founder and pastry chef of uh Ruanni, and we are a better for you dessert company. We're on a mission to create high-quality, scrumptious desserts that are joy for your taste buds while focusing on gut health. So I've been a pastry chef for the better part of a decade now, and I've, uh, worked all around, uh, different continents, made from the smallest of the pettifos to the biggest of the wedding cakes and everything in between. So I, I knew that I had the expertise to pull a product off. All I needed was figuring out what kind of ingredients. So anytime I bought a store-bought dessert, I would get 90 seconds of bliss and 90 minutes of pain. And that was true for everybody, literally. Like, the minute you eat something, you feel good, and then for the 90 minutes, either you have a bloated stomach or you have a skin reaction or a massive headache. I had, most of the time I had all of 3. So, um, this led me to, you know, create a product that did not have any of the bad things, but had ashwagandha as an adaptogen, was gluten-free, dairy-free, no soy, non-GMO. was made without any refined sugars, also had all the textures, flavors that you associate with a traditional brownie, and was better for you and your gut. So I don't know if you guys have already tried it. Please do if you haven't, because our brownies are so nice. You'll definitely want them twice.

Speaker 1 [02:29] Be careful. All right. Um, Karen, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Roani and, and adaptogenic brownie. I think you made a comment earlier, uh, in the last presentation about where do these types of products go on in the store. Do you have a better sense for Rowai?

Speaker 3 [02:48] Uh, first of all, it's absolutely delicious. It's incredibly delicious, and it's shocking that it doesn't have any of the bad things in it. Um, I don't really know where this goes in the store. I, I couldn't tell from the packaging. We were talking about that a bit in the room. It's easier to imagine this in a specialty grocery store than in a big conventional grocery store. I, I don't know.

Speaker 1 [03:11] Yeah. You know, Matt, I mean, as an entrepreneur, you don't sell functional products per se or explicitly functional products, um, but when you are shopping and we are looking at other people's brands, I mean, how do you assess functionality in these types of products and what do you think of Rawai in general?

Speaker 4 [03:26] Yeah, I, I think he's done a great job, delicious product. Um, I think his story is really, really interesting, compelling, comes across. I think going to market as an adaptogenic brownie, my own take would be you'd be better served going as a better for you brownie, where you're, I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what Ashwagandha is or does for me, and so they have a great PR team, whoever Ashwagandha uses. So, um, but I think it's a little bit, it makes it more niche than more universal, and the taste should be universal here because it was that good. I would go with better for you brownie. And the function is, is the cherry on top, but not the main story. I, I think it didn't taste like you had any compromise. It was great tasting brownie that happened to be better for you.

Speaker 1 [04:15] So let's stay on that for a second, Adrian, you know, um, adaptogens, as Matt was talking about, it's all over the place. Everyone, adaptogen in everything, um, but leading with adaptogens, are there enough consumers out there? Is there enough, uh, household penetration for adaptogens at this point for people to really appreciate what Ruanni's doing?

Speaker 5 [04:32] I'm not sure. I kind of agree with Matt on the point where I would definitely go with the better for you positioning. I feel when we saw that there was Ashwagandha in it, I was surprised, but I think that also might turn people off, um, just due to flavors associated with it. Neither, none of us realized there was adaptions in them. I think until after tasting them, so the taste really comes through, but I worry that might deter people that language,

Speaker 1 [05:00] yeah, and Jason, how do you evaluate products like these as as an investor? How do you think about functional sweets once again, um, and what do you think of Iani overall?

Speaker 6 [05:09] I mean, I'm gonna sound like a broken record on a couple of things. It was an amazing product and I really like how clear they were in the labeling in terms of, you know, what was missing and, and not included and it was still an amazing product. I think for me as an investor, anytime I encounter something like that, being trained to be the skeptic is, I wanna know like, you know, what's your price point, what's your gross margins, and what have you done in order to make the product this good that may prevent you from being. Successful in stores and so I don't know that's necessarily anything that he could have covered in the pitch, but, um, that's gonna be an, uh, immediate concern as an investor is trying to understand kind of if a pro it sound counterintuitive, but if a product is that good like what have you put into there and how is that gonna potentially hurt your margins and ability to be a good business on top of being an amazing product.